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Holiday Reminder re: Marketplace Terms of Service

As the holidays approach, we're already getting a bunch of threads offering good deals and Black Friday sales. Before you post these, please refresh yourself with a few key points in the Terms of Service.

We're also about to add specific guidance on not posting random good deals. These are great...but they're all over the internet. If you want a random good deal, search for it! We don't want a bunch of non-hammock clutter on the forum, or a bunch of big-box manufacturer spam links choking out the cottage-level innovation that happens here.

VI. The Marketplace. Hammock Forums offers a Marketplace for members to sell their personal gear or to post about a piece of gear they’re willing to buy.

C. Items must be listed with a selling price. No auction-style posts, bidding on items, or linking to auctions.

D. Do not post links to websites that offer referral bonuses or kickbacks.

J. Vendors and resellers are not welcome to post their sales in the Marketplace. Dumping extra inventory, even if it’s a good deal for HF’s members, violates the essentially non-commercial nature of our site.

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the public councils because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” ~Judge Joseph Story

Not if we want to stay true to HF's primary mission (and we do). Here's the response last time this came up:

Originally Posted by Just Jeff

We've discussed it among the mods and have decided to stick with the original policy. We try very hard to keep HF focused on original content and to minimize the commercial influence, so the only vendors we'd like to reward are the ones offering original products to the community. We don't want their innovation to be squeezed out by mass marketers. If our cottage manufacturers have great deals, they're free to post them in the vendor subforums (but even cottage hammock makers are not allowed to post non-hammock advertisements in their own subforums).

We know that not everyone agrees with this policy, but we think it's one of the key ingredients to creating the community that has sprung up here. Since this community is more important to us than finding some good deals, we'd like to keep the policy in place for HF. What someone does with another site and another community is not our decision, but HF will remain as non-commercial as possible.

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the public councils because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” ~Judge Joseph Story

would it be bad form to post deals on other gear in the DMSF OT section? id rathernot see the FS section cluttered anyway, and id rather give my $ to Dutch and the like than big box store but sometimes the stores have things not offered by vendors.

Give a man fire and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. Dante

would it be bad form to post deals on other gear in the DMSF OT section?

Alright, you got me. What is the "DMSF OT section"?
Donating Member Sub-Forum Off-Topic?
And here I thought acronyms were supposed to make things less 'wordy'.

The short answer is still no. Like Jeff said in his first post, those things are all over the internet and not difficult to search. We really don't want to be a link farm for big box outfits. We are very lucky to have the cottage vendor interactions that we do and we also appreciate the fact that they come here to share as much, or more, than to sell. That's about all the commercialism we are looking for here. Discussion is more valuable to us than 'Hot Deals'.

Because it clutters the forum, especially for folks who use the "new posts" function. And because that's one more thing for the mods to work on that doesn't add to HF's primary mission of discussing hammocks.

What beats me is why people come to Hammock Forums asking for all kinds of non-hammock things. If you want non-hammock things, go to a non-hammock forum. Maybe look for one called GoodDealForums.com.

It's also kinda funny that people use the logic of, "All the other good forums do that." Good...then it's not needed here b/c all the other good ones are already doing it. So...you do actually have the option of doing both. Choose to read the good deal subs on the other forums OR not.

(I really mean the smiley, too...but this policy won't change.)

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the public councils because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” ~Judge Joseph Story